I would like to respond briefly to your question about assets, because there are a lot of community-based groups across the country that are trying to help low-income families to build assets to have their own personal safety net. The problem is that these organizations get themselves caught in the charitable act trap. There needs to be a new legal framework, and that is clearly federal. A lot of organizations are doing research right now and are asking for a change to the framework we have, which places them as charities, and they are not really charities. They are saying they are community enterprises. In the U.K. and the U.S., their work is recognized as community enterprise, but there is a legal status problem in Canada that we really need to look at, and that is something the federal government clearly could do to enable that kind of work throughout the country.
On March 10th, 2009. See this statement in context.